Building a Library of Common Utilities

[Pault]

How about a class that extends PIDController built specifically for drivetrains? Have instance variables for the drivetrain, left encoder, and right encoder, then do whatever method you want to turn it into PID driving (average the encoders, run each side seperately with error correction if they get out of sync, or whatever else you want to do). It takes a suprising amount of effort to do such a basic task with the current WPILIB. Even better would be if you could extend PIDSubsystem using this special controller.

[MatthewC529]

Originally Posted by Pault

How about a class that extends PIDController built specifically for drivetrains? Have instance variables for the drivetrain, left encoder, and right encoder, then do whatever method you want to turn it into PID driving (average the encoders, run each side seperately with error correction if they get out of sync, or whatever else you want to do). It takes a suprising amount of effort to do such a basic task with the current WPILIB. Even better would be if you could extend PIDSubsystem using this special controller.

That is a neat idea! I will look into it. I had seen some examples but I think it would be a good idea to implement it.

I kind of want to make this a community thing (though that may be unlikely since everyone seems to like their personal libs) but I want to make a pretty decent, maybe expansive extension of WPILib with the introduction of Java 7 in 2015.

Thanks again!